


House of Wolves

by coldwarqueer



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Abstract Sex, Asexual Character, M/M, Origin Story, Season 12 spoilers, set many many years before the events on Chorus, theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 04:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2415371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldwarqueer/pseuds/coldwarqueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locus likes to think of himself as a contractor.</p><p>He says "contractor" because he is not allowed to say "freelancer" (that name has been patented, apparently) and "mercenary" doesn't taste good on his tongue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House of Wolves

Locus likes to think of himself as a contractor.

He says "contractor" because he is not allowed to say "freelancer" (that name has been patented, apparently) and "mercenary" doesn't taste good on his tongue.

The money is good, and Locus likes the money, really. Of course, there's so much more to it than the money.

The orders that come from his client that pop up on his HUD, the specialty armor that he had grown attached to in his unsatisfying failure of a military tour, the well-oiled pattern of efficiency he works himself into. The money is just a perk that comes from the _satisfaction_ of carrying out orders like the soldier he knows he is, and the elite he is supposed to be.

" _Your target's name is Felix. Don't mess this up._ "

Locus resists the urge to tell his client he _never_ messes up. He assures his client the job will be taken care of efficiently, quickly, no mess, no questions, he will snipe his target right from the top of a neighboring building and it will never be traced back. He will be gone from the scene before anyone can even think to trace where the bullet came from.

Locus knows there is a reason he hates civilian clients. Especially rich ones in competition, killing each other over claims and stocks and patents, because he has the target in his crosshairs, he has the safety off, finger twitching on the trigger when-

" _Locus, wait_ -"

He knows there is a reason he hates high class clients who come up with "twists" and "innovations" to the plans, because he could have the job done now, just by pulling the trigger.

" _Get close to him first, he has_ very _valuable information_."

Locus' fingers slowly, regretfully, eases off the trigger of his sniper rifle. He clicks the button of his comm. "Yes, of course."

He knows there is a reason he hates having "creative" clients, who watch too many movies and hollywood spy shows, because the job could be done.

But it's not.

* * *

His target's name is Felix, and his client thinks it will be good for him to "undercover" for this job.

It's not as if he hasn't done reconnaissance missions before, where he worms his way into the lives and communities of people he needs to know and learn for a more efficient job later. He lacks interpersonal skills, but of course he knows how to _work_ within these parameters well enough to _succeed_.

He knows how to work these jobs, and he detests the innovations his client comes up with, but he will slog through it if only to prove he _can_. He follows orders, so long as he is the paid soldier of a client, and he knows what to expect in these situations.

He completely underestimates being thrown a curveball like Felix.

"Fuck's sake, you get kidnapped _once_ when you're thirteen and your parents stick you with ten body guards for the next six years." He is staring from where he sits at the hand carved, solid ivory table (expensive, Locus thinks, because animals hoarding ivory have been extinct for centuries). His chin is resting in his palm, looking bored with his elbows on the table, Locus takes the time to count the piercings in his face as he talks, not even as if anyone else is in the room it seems; more to hear his own voice.

"You'd think they'd take a fucking hint after I keep fucking them all _just_ to get them fired."

Locus reacts only by shifting his shoulders slightly, as if acknowledging that he had heard Felix speak and nothing else.

"You ever fuck a client?"

He is brazen, at least, and Locus can't help but think there is more than the skin-deep personality he has shown in the past ten minutes.

He is waiting for a response, and Locus' shoulders tense as he tries to achieve the correct words for such a situation. "My reputation as a professional prohibits me from answering that question."

"So that's a _yes_." There is bait in Felix's words, and Locus as to swerve around the proverbial meat being dangled in front of him. Felix grows bored with his nonreactions. "You're boring."

Despite saying so, Felix is _interested_.

Locus' only concession is the way he steps back when Felix approaches him, betraying his apprehension. Felix doesn't fail to notice, and Locus can see the way his eyes crinkle at the corners as he approaches. Locus jerks his head back when Felix goes up on his tippy toes just to come face to face, fingers hooking in the grooves of his arm and knuckles brushing against the kevlar surface of his bodysuit.

"Hidin' behind that mask, buddy?"

"i'm a contractor. You can't expect me to walk around in a suit and tie."

"Funny, that's what all the other bodyguards wore."

"I must not be like other bodyguards, I suppose."

"Nope, not a bit."

* * *

His charge's name is Felix, and _god,_ does Locus _despise_ him.

Felix needles at Locus with questions that seem too eerily close to uncovering truth. Felix knows more than he lets on, but he still desires _closeness_ with Locus, and he is unprepared with how to deal with that.

Locus knows he is supposed to be gathering information for his client (what information that is valuable, he has no idea. He will never understand major business owners and their rivals). Felix has information, Locus knows he does, but he never lets on that he has it.

Instead, Felix spends all of his time alone with Locus (which there is a lot of, he has noticed) trying to get into his pants.

He has groped his codpiece (Locus is uncomfortable remembering the thought, because his armor is like a second skin, and foreign hands touching make him nervous), peeled at the edges of his bodysuit at his neck, if only just to see what the skin looks like underneath, and Locus feels powerless to do little but guide Felix's hands away, show no reaction, under no circumstances give Felix the idea that his advances are arousing riposte in Locus.

Felix doesn't care for the professional life his parents have laid out for him; Locus sees him rolling his eyes from where he stands at the door, watching meetings and meals take place. Felix's parents are too lenient, Locus thinks, but that is exactly the kind of environment where a spoiled brat such as Felix will learn to _thrive_.

He is nineteen, they tell him, he needs to start thinking about climbing ladders so that one day he will be able to take over the company with _experience_ , and _unquestionable_ power under his belt.

Locus almost feels bad for him.

Almost.

* * *

Sometimes Locus forgets that he is not actually Felix's bodyguard.

Reporting back to his client is the only thing that keeps him grounded. The other day he found himself stepping in front of a mugger that had noticed the bounce in Felix's expensive shoes and the clack of his platinum tongue ring against his teeth; Locus found himself twisting the arm of a would-be criminal to protect someone who he found, at best, obnoxious and watching Felix's eyes, instead of amazed, twinkle with something like power.

He reports back that there is still nothing Felix has admitted to him, and Felix talks a lot, so surely there must have been something he would have spilled. He tells his client he can kill Felix the next day, or tonight, if only given the order, because Locus is close enough that it will be easy.

But still the client urges _no_ , Felix must _know_ something, and Locus is given the order under any circumstances necessary must he get this information out of Felix.

Locus is still unsure what information is needed, but he understands exactly what _any circumstances_ means.

He thinks he has had enough of rich business owners as clients for a while, because they have brought him nothing but trouble so far.

* * *

Locus is not fond of what _any circumstances_ entails, because he knows what Felix wants of him, and depending on how he manages the situation it could go very poorly.

It isn't as if Locus doubts his abilities, because he has been told many times by partners that he is stunning and, well, very efficient at doing what needs to be done. No, Locus is more worried about Felix's unpredictability. There is no guarantee Felix actually _wants_ him, because Felix seems to only be interested so long as Locus denies his advances.

Locus has to walk the balance between keeping Felix enticed and still giving him what he wants.

It's easiest to do when Felix is drunk, he thinks, when Felix is hanging off of him at a party, whining about being tired and sore, and damn, Locus, your armor is really hot. Felix's babbling only makes Locus nervous, because he is drawing attention as he drags Felix away.

"You've had too much," he mutters under his breath, more to himself as he goes over what needs to be done in in head, over and over, until it feels more like a routine.

"Thank god we're out of there-" And suddenly Felix is walking just fine, glancing over his shoulder as if he expects someone to be following them. Felix is curling an arm around Locus' bicep and he is unsure what has just happened, and readjusting to account for the fact that he may have _underestimated_ Felix. "You did great, they actually thought I was fall down drunk. You're so cute when you do that thing where your shoulders tense up."

Locus shifts his feet back, recalculating the situation in his mind, because he had not been expecting this. Felix often gets drunk at these social gatherings (if only to make an ass of himself and have an excuse for his parents to usher him out of the room, Locus has noticed), and Locus has to think about every single one of them, and every single interaction that Felix may have been _acting_.

"There's no security cameras back here." Locus wonders if that is an invitation for something other than what is on his mind. He is certain of it, in fact, because what is on his mind is certainly more illegal and requires much more blood clean up than what Felix is offering.

"There are not," Locus concurs, nodded his head in an almost animatronic way, more out of habit than anything else. it is easier to just nod and pretend he agrees with everything Felix says, because he is being paid by two different people to put up with Felix's bullshit.

"Take off your helmet."

That throws him for a loop.

Because of course, he had been thinking in terms of something sloppy and drunk and in a hurry, just how he thinks Felix would prefer it in an intoxicated state. The way Felix presses up against him with something hungry in his eyes makes Locus reevaluate his motives. He tells himself this is part of the job and the objective, that Felix's fascination with him will only make it _easier_ for him. There is nothing about Felix he actually _wants_.

He repeats the thought in his head, just to make sure it still resonates.

"I said, take off your helmet." Felix doesn't move to do it himself, because Felix doesn't act when he knows he can have someone else do it for him. "I want to see your face. I tend to like seeing that from the people I fuck."

Locus tells himself it is for the job. He will carry out his orders, because that is what he does. _Under any circumstances_ , his client told him, so he will endure any circumstances. He thinks, as he reaches up to undo the clasps and latches that lock his helmet into place, the compression hissing out air as it unlocks from his spine, that Felix must have been planning this all night. _  
_

He clutches his helmet in both hands in front of him as a barrier between him and Felix, who is staring with quiet delight at the dark outline of Locus' features in the unlit hall.

"I was expecting something like, scarface, honestly," Felix admits with that teasing edge to his voice. He puts a hand on the top of Locus' helmet, which only makes him hold tighter as Felix pushes it to the side, pressing his body up against Locus' armor.

There are scars, of course, because what soldiers goes through life without scars afflicting them? Locus turns his head as Felix tilts up on his toes to kiss the one on his jaw and tries to shift away from the small hand that cards through the high ponytail he keeps his hair in for ease and comfort inside his helmet. Felix is more skin on skin contact than he has had in months.

Felix is playing with the latches on his codpiece, teasing them open one by one, accentuating each hiss of compression being released with a kiss to Locus' face. He trails up from his jaw, to the corner of his mouth, the center of his mouth as teeth barely tug at his bottom lip, the codpiece coming off when Felix tilts his head and shows him a real kiss.

"You're so tense. Ever gotten laid before?" Felix's lips are curling at the corners in such a way that Locus can hardly call it a smile.

"I have, yes."

"So? Been so long you forgot how it's done?"

Locus knows what he is doing, he has always been good with sexual partners; not because he is particularly interested but because he will answer to what they want and listen to their body language. He knows the human body intimately in study and observation that he knows where to touch to kill, and where to touch to- well... the opposite.

"No. What do you want me to do?"

Despite his assurance that he knows what he is doing and that he can do it well, Felix sees the shake of his hands as he touches. It has been a long time since he has willingly touched another human being for something more than just to immobilize them for the kill. Felix guides his hands to the right place, over his buttons and zipper and where he wants Locus' gloves to rub up against just right.

"I knew you were a freak when I saw you," Felix murmurs as he tucks them up around the corner, right where no one would be able to find them without specifically looking. "But shit, you're like a baby. Gotta teach you everything. Come on, help me get out of my pants. You, uh.. might want to help yourself out of some of that armor."

In the long run it is easier to just rip a hole in his bodysuit, because he has more than one, and he is not ready to expose that much of himself to Felix the first time around.

But Felix is soft inside, and Locus can't remember the last time he felt close to someone else like this. Felix is stifling tiny noises against his neck, one hand anchored in his ponytail and clawing at him with the other. He can feel Felix gouging tiny marks in the plaster of the armor, scratching away at the forest green paint, as if it were his own skin.

And Felix is warm, not just inside, all over, and he tells Locus not to worry about a condom, and Locus can't believe he falls for it.

Locus thinks that if Felix hadn't cum first he would have demanded Locus drop to his knees and worship him to completion, because when Felix tells him, " _Don't stop 'til you're done,_ " he isn't saying it for Locus, he's saying it to ride out those last jagged moments of pleasure that come from the painful overstimulation.

Afterwards there is no bed to roll over on and when Locus pulls out, hands groping on the wall for purchase just to catch to his breath he can't help but think that Felix is like a cat licking cream from its whiskers; content and smug. Locus feels along the floor for where Felix dropped his codpiece and helmet, because though it feels wrong to leave Felix like this, fucked open and vulnerable, Locus is raw, and he knows he can't stay where he is, because Felix will pry open that rawness and worm inside and _stay_ like a parasite in an open wound _._

Locus doesn't like how Felix smiles when he compresses his helmet once more, his HUD lighting up with Felix's vitals and observation.

He is reminded once more what Felix is as his HUD loads up and labels Felix **TARGET**.

* * *

His lover's name is Felix. He never intended it to go this far.

 _Under any circumstances_ stop being _any circumstances_ and very specifically becomes _natural circumstances_ , because it doesn't stop at just that one time after a crowded party at Felix's parents' estate where he pretended to be drunk. Locus knows it should have stopped there, because Felix will never unload information to him, Felix will never release what he knows, be it because he doesn't pick up on the hints Locus so subtly drops or because he is that tightly reigned in on his words.

Locus knows it should have stopped there, because when he wakes up in Felix's bed, bones aching, he can't help but tense when he feels a warm body still there beside him. Sometimes Felix rolls over and nestles against him like a cat that requires attention, lest its claws come out; and sometimes Locus touches him to assuage that desire.

It should have stopped there, because even after Locus realizes that Felix is dangerous he still wakes up in Felix's bed and rolls over the side, sitting up to realize not a scrap of armor sits on his body.

He feels open and vulnerable, and Felix wakes up to press against him from behind, purring and nuzzling against his bare throat. He ends up on his back, Felix on top of him, moving slow and tight until he is a shaking mess.

When Felix is done (because, oh, no, it's never about Locus being done) Locus stares at the ceiling and thinks about the magnum hooked into the pile of armor resting on the bedside table, only three feet away from him, and thinks about how he should be pressing it against Felix's temple and pulling the trigger.

But instead he stares into Felix's amber eyes, who is curled under one of his arms, fingers walking up Locus' broad chest, and he says soft under his breath, tone even, "I was hired to kill you."

He doesn't know how he expects Felix to react, but really, no reaction is hardly what he thought.

Felix is examining him, a smile that reaches his eyes, but doesn't form on his lips. It's almost as if Felix had been anticipating this coming up between them.

"Why haven't you done me in already?" Locus isn't sure how to answer, because he doesn't know. He doesn't know the answer, and he should. "You soft or something?"

"I was ordered to obtain information from you before I carried out the objective." Locus is spilling much more than he should, and he knows he will have to kill Felix after this lest he ruin his reputation. The only rebuttal his mind has is _fuck your reputation_.

"Answer me. Why haven't you killed me yet? In case you haven't noticed I'm not exactly about to divulge the family secrets."

"I know." Locus doesn't have an answer, so he doesn't respond. He knows he should have an answer, every part of him urges him to have one, because he always has answers. Felix leaves him blank.

He isn't sure how he ends up staring down the barrel of his own magnum.

A sharp, surprised exhale of breath escapes him, and Locus has only a second to admire how clean he got the barrel of the gun before he shifted his gaze to Felix.

"Would you kill me, Felix?"

"I can ask you the same question. For a freak who named himself after his armor, you can actually get pretty boring sometimes. Be more interesting."

"So you _would_ kill me."

"Would. Could. Can. Might." Felix is rolling the words on his tongue like he is tasting the weight of them. "No one would even think it was me. I can say you broke into my room, started getting frisky with me- man, what would my parents think of you then? They've been saying how you're such a stand-up guy for avoiding my 'wily seductions' for so long." Felix exhales a bitter laugh like a bark. Locus thinks he recognizes something in Felix's eyes that he has often seen in other contractors like himself. And then Felix says, "You know, I've always wanted to kill someone."

Locus is slow to move his hand, until he can shift the magnum away from his face. Felix lets him. As he sits up, tilting his head just enough for their noses to avoid bumping, he tastes Felix's breath and how it smells like cigarettes and vodka from the night before. "I can help you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Locus shakes his head, because Felix sounds incredulous, as if he thinks Locus is offering him the kind of help that means a straight jacket and a padded room. He curls a hand around the back of Felix's head, thumbing the bleached hair. "Let me teach you."

The way Felix's mouth curls up is still not quite a smile, but Locus is loathe to call it anything else. "Yeah? What about killing me?"

"You just need to disappear for me to get paid." Really, he wouldn't mind losing the money.

Felix rolls off of him, and Locus watches him strut around the room, the gun still in his hand. He has no idea how to fire it, Locus is sure, because he is waving it around with the safety off and his finger under the trigger guard. "You don't know what it's fucking like to be under their thumb all the goddamn time. I've learned accounting, business algebra, blah blah blah, for the good of the company, for the good of family- _fuck_ the family and _fuck_ the company. And then they ask if I'd rather be poor-" Felix stops to laugh, "As if. I just don't want to work the way they work."

He is pointing the gun at Locus again. "I can't trust you, but you had better teach me all the good places to go."

Locus doesn't move, for fear that the glare in Felix's eyes will shift just enough to give him a split second warning before the gun goes off. He shakes his head. "You can trust me not to kill you in your sleep."

"Yeah?"

"I've decided if I do it, I would prefer you to be awake."

Felix still doesn't seem convinced, but Locus is not wasting any more time. He is rolling his body suit over his skin and reaching for the parts of his armor, slowly assembling himself as if he is a machine on the assembly line.

"You had better drop the last name. Charon is well known throughout the galaxy." Felix is giving him a kind of coy look, watching as he runs diagnostics on his armor and boots up his HUD.

"What about just _Felix_?"

He resets Felix's label from **TARGET** to **ALLY** just as Felix tells him,

"Oh, and, I like mercenary better than contractor."

* * *

His partner's name is Felix.


End file.
